Laugh
by Marie Elaine Cullen
Summary: The Firm October Promptshot: Laugh. There are many kids at Brooklands... And all of them hate the 'Druggie.' But when a stalker discovers Alex actually has a sense of humor, life will never be the same... Rated K for... A stalker.


**AN: Hey… Sorry about the lateness, my brother stole my flash-drive as a Halloween joke, and he "forgot" where he put it, so it took my numerous torture sessions to get it out of him...**

**Anyways, this is a Firm promptshot, and I decided to write one, because it was fun when I last did it, so… here goes…**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Alex Rider, as Anthony Horowitz has an awesome team of lawyers…**

**October 2009, The Firm Promptshot challenge.**

**Prompt: Laugh**

* * *

There were many kids at Brookland.

And nearly all of them hated the Druggie Boy.

None of them had spoken to Alex for months, ever since Harris had moved away.

Not a conversation, anyways.

There were jeers, put-downs, rude comments, and insults.

Maybe it was because they were scared of him. Maybe it was because they hated him.

Or maybe it was because he was different, and difference made him a target.

Whatever the reason, he was a pariah.

Only those who remembered the old Alex, who had deserted them such a long time ago, didn't bully him.

Bully, perhaps, is the wrong word.

Bullying means that a person was picking on another person who didn't retaliate.

Alex Rider did.

His sarcastic comments, cold emotions, and every once in a while, superior fighting skills, made him a strong and aloof person.

Not one to be bullied.

Of course, some of the thicker children couldn't figure that out, and still made stupid comments such as 'What happened to Harris? Did you finally scare him away?' Which he always answered to with a very good variety of the same answer. 'Nah, before he left, he told me that his eye doctor told him that if he saw your face for a few more months, he would go permanently blind.'

When new girls would come to school, they would instantly be captivated by the 'hawtness' of Alex.

But only to learn that he was a 'druggie', involved in a gang, a weapons smuggler, and illegal citizen, and a terrorist, when the reality couldn't be farther from the truth (of course, a lot of the girls still had crushes on Alex, as they went for the 'dark, tall, handsome and dangerous' profile).

What no one knew was that the boy they teased and made fun of, the boy who half the girls had secret crushes on, and gossiped about at sleepovers, no one knew that they owed their lives to him, many times over.

Alex thanked whatever greater force there was that they didn't.

But there was one thing that they didn't think about, but absentmindedly, they knew it was what he was missing.

A sense of humor.

You see, there was this one girl, Ashley, who was obsessed with Alex, and had become quite a stalker.

She had come to the school a year before and was becoming quite a nuisance.

Ashley had followed Alex home, and along with a few of her friends, had camped out in front of Alex's house when he was 'sick.' Along with a video camera, just in case she missed something. He had resorted to asking the MI6 agent who had driven him back from his debriefing to park a block away from his house, and had sneaked through the back door.

Needless to say, it was getting quite annoying.

A week after he had 'recovered from the Swine Flu,' Alex had had just about enough of his stalker.

He had put up a note in his yard stating something along the lines of 'Private Property, (the land-mines have been planted….).

It scared away everyone, really.

But Ashley had been persistent, and she wasn't going to let a few explosive killer devices that could blow her apart keep her away from her stalkee… Er… Crush…

She was sure that Alex was bluffing… He _was _bluffing, wasn't he?

So, anyways, Ashley still hung out in front of his house, from the second school ended, till ten minutes before her curfew. On Saturdays, she hung out for a few hours, Sundays were her days off. She was never late. NEVER. Alex once had to go to the dentists, and was informed by Jack when he came back that she had been out there while he wasn't even home…

It was very creepy.

One Saturday, Alex had gone out, and Ashley was stalking. When he came back, he was among a group of men with serious faces and bulging muscles.

One of the wrestler-looking people looked at Alex and said something quietly.

Alex did something that was beyond anything Ashley had ever done before.

He laughed.

A real, hearty, throw-back-your-head laugh.

It was the most magnificent sound Ashley had ever heard.

Thankfully, the group of men, and Alex were close enough for Ashley's sturdy little video-camera to catch the sound and sight of it.

The next day at school, Alex was regretting walking home with K-Unit.

It had turned out that Wolf had moved nearly next door to his house, and they had had a small reunion of sorts.

They had teased him mercilessly about his stalker. As Eagle so eloquently put it 'Cub, what is with you and bad attention? I mean, MI6, then the Sergeant, all those terrorists organizations… And yet you don't have a girlfriend! Only a stalker!' Pausing for a moment, Eagle quietely said 'I wish someone was obsessed enough with me to stalk me… But then again, I'm not a teenaged James Bond.'

Snake had then said quietely to Alex. 'And thank god for that! If the fate of the world was in his hands, we would've been turned into dust a long time ago!'

The comments had made Alex burst out laughing. Something that he had not done for a very long time…

But at school, Alex was regretting his laugh.

What kind of deranged person would put up DVD players playing over and over his laugh? And better yet, what kind of person would put up a sign next to it saying 'JOIN THE ALEX RIDER FAN CLUB! WE MEET AT THE 5th TABLE IN THE CAFETERIA ON TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS'

On Tuesday, the table was full.

Ah, the hardships of a teenaged James Bond.

If only he hadn't laughed…

* * *

**AN: Uh… God… Yeah, I realize this was very crackfic ish… I really didn't want it to turn out this way…. But it did… So… Please review!**

**Asking for Reviews (with a bribe of virtual Alex-shaped cookies)**

**Marie**


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